This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Privacy Overview
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.
3rd Party Cookies
This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.
Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.
Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!
Director's Statement
Cistercian-Trappist life takes at its source the bible, the rule of Saint Benedict (written in the 7th century) and the writings of the fathers of monasticism.
It employs traditional forms of monastic prayer. The "liturgy of the hours" is group prayer largely based on the Psalms and performed in a chapel, seven times a day. Song forms an essential part of the prayer and of the rhythm of Cistercian life. The monks sing with one voice to enter into communion with the Breath of Life. In unison, they blend together as one in spiritual combat.
Cistercian monks prefer silence, which is the rule, during most of the day. But their life is also built around the teaching of the superior (abbot or prior) and group exchanges known as "chapters". All major decisions are made in the chapterhouse. Always voted in on, they are prefaced by one-to-one discussions in the superior's office.
The Cistercian-Trappists have no apostolic mission of evangelisation and refrain from all proselytism.
The rule of Saint benedict calls upon monks to practice hospitality and sharing, "especially with the poor and foreigners" and those who are suffering. It privileges manual labor and the fostering of relationships with neighbours through farming - vital during periods of insecurity and restriction.
Monasteries are usually isolated from populated areas to favor a contemplative lifestyle amidst nature. Every Trappist monk sets aside one day a month to walk in nature and meditate alone.
Today the Cistercian Order of Strict Observance numbers 2,600 monks and 1,883 nuns, in 96 monasteries and 66 convents the world over.